


homophones

by bestliars



Category: Hockey RPF
Genre: M/M, Minnesota Wild
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-27
Updated: 2015-10-27
Packaged: 2018-04-28 12:47:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,725
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5091302
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bestliars/pseuds/bestliars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>the word of the day is partner</p>
            </blockquote>





	homophones

**Author's Note:**

> thanks to Mary for looking at the Swedish, thanks to Bess for betaing. remaining confusion is all my own.

_**lesson one** _

__

_the word of the day is:_ partner.

_the Swedish word for partner is_ : partner

_now use it in a sentence:_

__

Jonas and Matt start the season paired together as defensive partners.

_Good job, now try writing a paragraph about partners._

__

Jonas and Matt are partners for the first eight periods the Wild play, but for the third period of game three the coach changes things up. Matt is mostly partnered with Scandi, while Jonas is partnered with Folin. And Matt's on the bench for the last few minutes of regulation, watching as last years partners of Spurg and Scandi, and Brods and Suter get them to the buzzer and at least one point.

****  
  
  
  
  


_**lesson two** _

__

_the word of the day is:_ partner

_the swedish word for partner is:_ partner

_now use it in a sentence:_

Ryan and Zach are partners, who live together, and treat their dogs like children.

_Good job, now try writing a story about partners._

__

At the start of the season Ryan and Zach invited Jonas and Matt to dinner, just the two of them, not the whole team. Matt didn't really get why, but then Jonas said, "I think they're happy we figured things out."

Matt is really happy about that too. They spent long enough dancing around each other, and then too much time acting like it meant less than it did. They're better off acknowledging that this matters to them, diving into a grown up romance. They’re partners, they have each other's backs.

It's definitely worth whatever talking to they might be in for. Zach and Ryan have been partners for a very long time — they know a lot about mixing hockey and romance. Ryan can be a little protective about Jonas, but that's not exactly a bad thing. You have to stick up for your D partner on the ice. Ryan and Jonas were partners since Jonas's rookie year, and Ryan's been a great mentor for Jonas.

Matt can be a little protective about Jonas too, just in a different way that involves a lot more making out to show how much he cares. At some point Zach and Ryan are probably going to tell them to make good choices, but that's fair.

Matt isn't scared, because he doesn't get scared, especially not over something like this, but he can't stop remembering getting sized up by grade eight girlfriend's dad and being found lacking. This is not the same situation at all, but still — he’s going to be on his best behavior.

Dinner is good. Good food. Matt’s finally old enough in the states to buy what is apparently a good bottle of wine, because his mother raised him right, and it’s rude to come to dinner empty handed. It’s warm enough to sit out on the back porch until it gets dark.

Matt might think that Ryan and Zach are kind of weird and intense about their dogs, but like, they’re good dogs. Maybe not quite deserving of the baby-stand-in attention they get, but good dogs who are fun to hang out with. Matt misses Jasmine, who’s home with his parents in Calgary.

Maybe someday Jonas and him will get a dog. He bets Jonas would pick out a great name for a dog. That’s something to keep in mind when they think about the future.

At the end of the night Jonas drives them back downtown, Matt in the passenger seat, messing with the music. They go back to Jonas’s apartment. It’s all good. This is working out.

****  
  
  
  


**_lesson three_ **

****

_A homophone is a word that sounds the same but has two different meanings. If you aren't careful they can really fuck you up._

__

Jonas has a story about how the first time he heard Ryan and Zach get called partners he got really confused because Zach doesn't play defense. Ryan was _his_ partner, and they were playing well together. Zach was a forward, it didn't make sense. Jonas didn't say anything, just soaked the conversation up, but it took him a while to figure it out.

_write a sentence that uses both definition of the word partner_

Matt and Jonas are trying to figure out how to be partners on and off the ice.

_try again_

__

Matt and Jonas are still settling in to being partners on the ice, and partners off the ice too.

_try again_

__

Matt and Jonas really really want to be good defensive partners, and are still figuring out what it's like to be partners off the ice.

_again_

Matt and Jonas are having a rocky start to being defensive partners; being partners off the ice came much more naturally.

_again_

Matt and Jonas hope their off-ice partnership helps with their play as defensive partners, and they don't know what they'll do if it doesn't.

_again_

Matt and Jonas are fairly sure that they'll still be fine as romantic partners even if being defensive partners doesn't work.

_again_

Jonas is scared that being off ice partners is a distraction, but he isn't willing to give it up. He never wants to find out if they’re better at playing hockey together if they’re not having sex.

_again_

Matt wants them to work as partners — it hasn't been very long, but he's already gotten so comfortable with Jonas. They have routines in warmups, which isn’t new, but he wants them to have routines with everything. He wants them to be routinely playing good hockey together, just like they routinely stay at each other’s places, and routinely spend afternoons making out and playing video games. Their partnership is important to him, and he needs it to work out.

****  
  
  
  
  


**_lesson four_ **

****

You know what they say — practice makes perfect. Let’s take a moment to review past examples. Remember, there’s a lot to learn from things that happened before.

Matt doesn't know the whole story about Sutes and Shea Weber. Sutes doesn't really talk about it. He knows that Jonas knows more than him, that at some point Jonas and Sutes sat down and talked about it, or like, around it, or something. The details of that conversation aren’t super clear. If Matt had to bet it wasn’t so much a conversation as a pile of non-sequiturs topped off with homey aphorisms, Jonas nodding along even when something didn’t make sense. He can’t imagine them actually talking about it.

Jonas is a quiet guy. He doesn’t talk a whole lot, but he talks to Matt. They understand each other really well. Matt’s started learning Swedish so they could understand each other. Not a whole lot yet, but he’s trying. That’s the level of committed he is to this partnership — the learning a foreign language level. That’s pretty special.

As good as they are at communicating with each other, Matt’s pretty sure there’s no way Jonas could explain the not-conversation him and Sutes had about Shea Weber. But that isn’t about them, that’s about how Sutes and Jonas are quiet in a lot of the same ways, quiet in a way that means whatever it was they said would probably be incomprehensible to anyone else.

That’s okay. There’s always gossip to fall back on.

What Matt’s gathered is that for a while Sutes and Weber had it all. They were partners on and off the ice. They were one of the top D pairs in the league, and had a lot of sex, and were pretty damn happy.

That’s everything Matt wants. Sign him up.

Of course, it didn’t workout. Sutes here now, and Weber’s in Nashville. When the Sutes goes back the fans boo him and Weber checks Zach relentlessly. Ryan and Zach seem to enjoy this, on some level, which is the best argument Matt has ever seen for not seeing them as responsible adults whose advice should be taken to heart.

Matt thinks him and Jonas have the potential to be awesome, and the potential to last, and really, just limitless potential. But they’re still figuring things out. It’s still early days. There’s no knowing how things are going to turn out.

****  
  
  
  
  


**_lesson five_ **

****

_In Review:_

__

Sometimes most important things are also the hardest, the most complicated, the most frustrating. They demand effort, but it’s worth sticking with it. Being in love isn’t easy — not if it’s the kind of love that lasts. Being in love takes work. It’s a commitment, one that Matt and Jonas are ready to stick with.

But if the coaching staff wants to change up the defensive pairs after three games that’s what’s going to happen. Game four Matt’s skating with Scandi, and Jonas is with Folin, except for the times when he’s with Suter, or the times when they’re together again. Things are very fluid.

Defensive partnerships come and go, lasting for a shift, a game, a season, or even for years, but never forever. That is just a fact. They’ll get another chance to play together, probably later this year even, but definitely at some point in the future. This isn’t the end of anything. It’s just a change.

Matt doesn’t like it.

He wants to be better. He knows he can.

****  
  
  
  
  


**_lesson six_ **

****

_the word of the day is:_ partner

They’re in this together, no matter what. Matt isn’t the type of guy who gives up on something when things get rough, and neither is Jonas. They’ve got each other’s backs.

They play a lot of the fourth game together. A lot of the fifth. Sixth, seventh, eighth. They aren’t together all the time, but some of it. They’re doing alright. They’re getting better.

Jonas falls asleep on Matt’s shoulder on the plane home from Winnipeg. They both had a point, but they still lost. They mostly didn’t play together, but they still lost. Matt wishes he could sleep too, but they lost, and he doesn’t like it, so he’ll just sit here and let Brods snore on him until they land in the Cities and then drive them home. He can’t wait to get off this flight and into his bed. Or Jonas’s bed. He isn’t really picky about whose place they end up at.

**  
**They’re in this together. They’re partners, right? Through wins and losses, plusses and minuses, plan rides and car rides, asleep and awake. They’re looking out for each other. They can figure everything else when it comes at them.


End file.
